Democratic reform was cancelled before the communists took power. Read the paragraph before the one you just posted. > In 1946, shortly after the war, critical

Democratic reform was cancelled before the communists took power. Read the paragraph before the one you just posted. > In 1946, shortly after the war, critical voices were raised against colonialism. Governor Sir Mark Young proposed a 48-member Municipal Council with significant competence to govern, one-third elected by non-Chinese, one third by Chinese institutions and one-third by Chinese individuals, known as the "Young Plan", believing that, "to counter the Chinese government's determination to recover Hong Kong, it was necessary to give local inhabitants a greater stake in the territory by widening the political franchise to include them."[9] The reform failed because of much resistance from expatriate companies, a new conservative and mistrustful governor, and London's fears of Hong Kong becoming a political battleground between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party of China (CPC).